may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him such advocating the present Democratic policy, never himself says is wrong." So forcefully did he emphasize this aspect of the case that Douglas winced and scowled under the implied moral obtuseness. Lincoln went on:

I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is wrong that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their enormity.

One of the chief assets of Douglas in the latter part of the campaign was the presence of his beautiful wife, whose grace, tact, and charm did much to smooth out the ruffles made by his rude vigor. She held receptions, largely attended by ladies, at the various places where he spoke, but there were also crowds of admiring gentlemen, and her exquisite diplomacy was a source of worry to the Republicans. Charles Bernays, editor of the St. Louis Anzeiger, and a strong Republican, upon being introduced to the lady Senator was so captivated that he actually turned Democrat and advocated the election of Douglas. Thereafter the Anzeiger was a Douglas organ,1 and it is no wonder that Lincoln and his friends were fearful of a power which logic could not resist.

From Quincy the leaders went by boat to Alton, where Lincoln was joined by his wife who had come quietly down from Springfield to hear the last of the debates. Gustave Koerner found him in the sitting room of the hotel, in a somewhat despondent mood. He at once said, "Let us go and see Mary," whom Koerner had met years before at a party in Lexington, Kentucky, when she was Mary Todd. "Now, tell Mary what 1 Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, p. 66.

you think of our chances," continued Lincoln; " she is rather dispirited." Koerner assured her that Lincoln would carry the State, and he was reasonably sure of the Legislature. Together they talked of the outlook, regretting, especially, the stand taken by Frank Blair, who was on his way from St. Louis with a boat full of Missouri Free-Soilers to cheer for Douglas. By this time an enthusiastic crowd, who had found out where Lincoln was, had surrounded the hotel; and their talk was at an end. They went without parade or fuss to the public square, where the debate was to be held. There Koerner met Douglas, whom he had not seen since 1856, and was greatly shocked by his appearance. His face was bronzed, bloated, and haggard, and his voice was so heavy and hoarse that he seemed at times to be barking.1

Despite his bad voice, Douglas opened the debate with one of the ablest speeches he had made during the entire canvass, winning sympathy for himself in his fight against the Lecompton fraud; quoting Jefferson Davis to confirm that he was in accord with the South; conjuring with the name of Henry Clay, as a bid for old Whig votes; and, happily, omitting many of his stale misrepresentations of his opponent. As a bait for the large German vote, he insisted that the equality referred to in the Declaration of Independence, was the equality of white men, especially "men of European birth and descent." While prodding Lincoln for his evasive answer as to whether he would admit a new Slave State, he did not forget the enemies in his own camp, which was a house divided against itself. In closing he sought to summarize the issues, by saying that he looked forward to the time when every State should be allowed to do as it pleased, and that he cared more for this principle than for all the negroes on earth. In reply Lincoln made one of the most incisive speeches of his life, which may be best illustrated by using a few maxim-like arguments, as he called them.

I want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has Douglas the exclusive 1 Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, p. 67.

I

right, in this country, of being on all sides of all questions! Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, am denounced by those pretending to respect Clay for uttering a wish that it might some time, in some peaceful way, come to an end.

How many Democrats are there about here who have left Slave States and come to the Free State of Illinois to get rid of the institution of slavery? I reckon there are a thousand to one. If the policy you are now advocating had prevailed when this country was in a Territorial condition, where would they have gone to get rid of it?

The fathers of the government placed the institution where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of slavery - the African slave-trade should be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited, if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction?

I understand the contemporaneous history of those times to be that covert language was used with a purpose, and that purpose was that in our constitution, which it was hoped and is still hoped will endure forever-when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery had passed from among us there should be nothing on the fact of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery ever existed among us.

Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that everybody does care the most about a thing which all experience shows we care a great deal about?

I defy any man to make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right to hold his slaves in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its length, breadth and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law.

Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the institution of slavery which the fathers of the government expected to come to an end ere this and putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis - placing it where

he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between two principles - right and wrong-throughout the world.

I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I reexpress it here to Judge Douglas- that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is.

After a spirited rejoinder by Douglas, the great debates, matchless in our history for the importance of their subject and the skill of their conduct, came to a close. Whatever may have been the impressions of the hour, the speeches of Lincoln, when read in the calm light of today, far excel those of Douglas in form, in texture, in temper, not less than in spirit and purpose. What strikes one, indeed, is the high art of the orator amidst the heat, hurry, and passion of such a contest. Clear thought is expressed with singular lucidity, each sentence having its special errand, each word its weight, with never either too much or too little. There are glints of wit and touches of humor, but what is borne in upon the reader is the earnestness, the gravity, and at times the almost religious solemnity of the man. He was not merely an office-seeker, still less a mere agitator, but a man who thought justly, loved the truth, and sought to serve his nation and his race. That Lincoln won by his appeal to reason in the forum is shown by the fact that his party published the debates in 1860,1 while the party of Douglas refused to do so.

IV

But the campaign did not end with the debates. In fact, the joint discussions were only a tithe of what the two leaders did and said during the canvass, both speaking almost every

1 The edition, published by Follett, Foster & Co., Columbus, Ohio, included the speeches of Lincoln in Ohio, in 1859. The same firm issued the campaign Life of Lincoln, by William Dean Howells.

day in the intervals between the debates, and afterward— Douglas still journeying in his special car, with artillery attachment; Lincoln finding rest the best way he could, sometimes curled up on miserable railway seats, wrapped in his shawl. There were, besides, other speakers doing valiant service Lovejoy, Palmer, Oglesby, Chase of Ohio, Carl Schurz, and especially Senator Trumbull, who was a "political debater, scarcely, if at all, inferior to either Lincoln or Douglas."'1 Amid the intense excitement of the closing days many men shifted their position, and one of the sorrows of Lincoln was the loss of his friend, Judge T. Lyle Dickey, who went over to the enemy. Dickey secured a letter from John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, urging the old line Whigs to vote for Douglas, as a necessary rebuke to Buchanan.2 This letter was circulated clandestinely and without warning in doubtful districts just on the eve of the election, and before its influence could be counteracted. Other forces, even more disastrous, were at work, as may be seen from the letters of Herndon:

Friend Parker.

Springfield, Ill., October 26, 1858.

Dear Sir: I really regret to hear that you are sick and confined to your bed. I hope that you are not very illso ill that you cannot soon talk and "yarn" and laugh with your bosom friends. Come, keep in good spirits and be merry. If you were in Illinois and could only see how the great human family is progressing justicewards, socialwards and religiouswards, you would thank God and take

courage.

The Republicans are full of hope and wild with enthusiasm, all educated and drilled to duty in this great canvass that is now apace approaching. Our forces are eager, well drilled and compact, and are only waiting the word "Go!" Do not understand me to say that all is surely and absolutely safe; but understand this all looks well, feels right in our bones. If we are defeated it will be on this account: there are thousands of wild, roving, robbing, bloated, pock1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Chap. by Horace White. 2 Life of Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney, pp. 271-3 (1907). The Crittenden letter is there published. Also Life of Crittenden, by Coleman, Vol. II, p. 163.